Talk:COVID-19 lab leak theory/Archive 11

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The Telegraph article

"Leading British and US scientists thought it was likely that Covid accidentally leaked from a laboratory but were concerned that further debate would harm science in China, emails show....Viscount Ridley, co-author of Viral: the search for the origin of Covid, said: 'These emails show a lamentable lack of openness and transparency among Western scientists who appear to have been more interested in shutting down a hypothesis they thought was very plausible, for political reasons.'"[1] Reputable source, should be reflected in the article. Stonkaments (talk) 06:49, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

• For the people who can't access the full text, it's available at the Internet Archive --Thereisnous (talk) 07:08, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
• This is not particularly new information... And many of the included email participants waited for more data, and when more data was available, decided the zoonotic origin was more likely. As is described in this article, and demonstrated elsewhere. [2]
  Any mention of this would have to include the fact that most of these scientists revised their belief once they encountered more data/info. And now believe the lab theory is not very likely (e.g. Andrew Rambaut who coauthored a letter declaring the lab leak was very very unlikely, essentially a conspiracy theory).
  Personally, I don't believe this information is particularly WP:DUE for this article. It's tabloid level, sold as a "gotcha" when people debating whether or not something is true before deciding is not particularly notable. We can avoid the entire issue of how to describe their position fairly (and avoid WP:BLP issues of misquoting or mischaracterizing). It's maybe noteworthy for the wiki pages of these people, but I don't see how this is very DUE here. If we included every single notable person's opinion, this article would be endless. We only include very few notable opinions where relevant. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 20:51, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Also covered in the Intercept [3]. Seems Collin's email about fox news might be relevant to the COVID-19_lab_leak_theory#Chilling_effects section. The Intercept seems to suggest that Fauci didnt want serial passage to be mentioned in the proximal origin paper: "Several of the scientists on the email chain ended up co-authoring the Nature Medicine paper with Andersen and Garry. In a February 4 email, which House Republicans presented as a response to a first copy of the draft, Fauci wrote: “?? Serial passage in ACE2-transgenic mice.' The early draft has not been made public, so we don’t know what, exactly, sparked Fauci’s reaction. But his words, which refer to the process of passaging a virus in “humanized” laboratory mice — or mice that have been genetically modified to express receptors for human ACE2, an enzyme that occurs in the lungs — do not appear in the published paper." 2603:800C:3101:D064:AC6C:3DBB:9690:A2C7 (talk) 21:16, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

According to The Intercept, the letter was released on Tuesday. The opening paragraph of The Intercept is even more explicit than The Telegraph. ON TUESDAY, REPUBLICANS on the House Committee on Oversight and Reform released a letter that paints a damning picture of U.S. government officials wrestling with whether the novel coronavirus may have leaked out of a lab they were funding, acknowledging that it may have, and then keeping the discussion from spilling out into public view. Adoring nanny (talk) 21:32, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Sorry for my ignorance, what is the significance of the day? 2603:800C:3101:D064:AC6C:3DBB:9690:A2C7 (talk) 21:39, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

I believe adoring nanny is trying to say this is new information.

Specific redacted letters have been released in full text, which would maybe be new content for individual BLP articles. (even then I am doubtful) But as for this article, that individual people have all done similar things is not particularly new when we already knew scientists were discussing this early on. The actual FOIA request and return happened even prior to last July. These emails have been out since before then, in redacted form. See: [4] [5]

it's identical to the story about Kristian Andersen. Some scientists were debating about the lab leak theory early. Then they decided it wasn't really all that meritous and threw weight behind the zoonosis theory. Is that really notable enough for this article? Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of news headlines. And it definitely is not a tabloid repository. Why is it relelvant that some scientists early on thought it was plausible, and then later decided it wasn't?

if we include this at all, we basically should just say that: "Early on, scientists such as Andrew Rambaut, Kristian Andersen, and Jeremy Farrar, discussed the possibility of the laboratory leak idea with Fauci, debating its merits over email. Ultimately, These scientists determined the zoonotic origin was the most likely scenario." And when I write out that sentence, I think to myself, "Is this really worth putting in a wikipedia article about the lab leak?" And personally, I think the answer is "no." We even know that Fauci considered the lab leak idea early and then dismissed it. [6]

I don't think the fact that different scientists were emailing each other about the lab leak in early 2020 is notable enough to include in an article like this. See also WP:RECENTISM and Wikipedia:NEWSPAPER especially this part: Even when an individual is notable, not all events they are involved in are. For example, news reporting about celebrities and sports figures can be very frequent and cover a lot of trivia, but using all these sources would lead to overly detailed articles that look like a diary. Not every facet of a celebrity's life, personal details, matches played, or goals scored is significant enough to be included in the biography of a person. To analogize, every tiny incident about the lab leak is not notable here.

Many tabloids are running this as "they stifled the truth to avoid hurting science" or "they are covering up the real origin for political reasons." But A) the most reputable sources don't say this, (e.g. runs contrary to WP:BESTSOURCES), B) it would be a WP:BLP violation to put that in wiki-voice, and C) the actual emails don't really bare that out. It's just yellow journalism, which makes sense given that this is basically a year-old story being rehashed to get clicks. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:57, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Agreed its a bit wishy washy to rely on hand notes taken of quasiprivate emails between people obviously thinking about things with opinions in flux. My main takeaway of anything new revealed here is the description of serial passage, it seems most lab leak theory focus has been on manual genetic insertions. Perhaps could throw a sentence somewhere to explain the difference? 2603:800C:3101:D064:AC6C:3DBB:9690:A2C7 (talk) 22:37, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Is there really a difference, for the purposes of this article? Both are often described as "gain-of-function research". Both are intentional modifications. And neither could have created SARS-CoV-2, as described by many many many experts on this topic. I would say sure, a brief mention could be warranted. But only if it is contextualized in the mainstream view of how it is not a plausible origin per WP:FRINGE and these mainstream academic sources saying as much: [7] [8] etc all available at WP:NOLABLEAK and news sources such as: [[9] — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 22:56, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

As mentioned in the email chain, there seems to be a possiblity that a serial passage expirmient could have accidentally introduced a furin cleavage site? Has anyone published a study looking into this? 2603:800C:3101:D064:18A6:6458:7838:3B28 (talk) 02:42, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

According to the released documents, Kristian Andersen had warned Fauci that the virus may have been engineered in a lab, noting that he and several other high-profile scientists “all find the genome inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory." This goes directly to the heart of the lab leak vs. zoonosis question. Adoring nanny (talk) 04:23, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

And do you know how Andersen feels about it now? Perhaps in relation to this: [10] — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 04:25, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink: many experts yes, but some experts like Ralph Baric say not, and that we can't know what created what, without access to the laboratory records. What this email leak shows is that even though these scientists thought a lab leak was possible, they said it was fringe, because of politics. Please stop evoking WP:FRINGE just because you don't agree with Baric's view. Scientists may disagree with each other, but Wikipedians must remain neutral, and our opinions do not matter. See WP:NOTREDDIT. Francesco espo (talk) 05:08, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

It's not that I don't agree with Baric's view, it's that he's in the minority, as demonstrated by the many many review articles published in reliable topic-relevant journals and peer-reviewed by experts. That's what FRINGE tells us to figure out. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 15:26, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

You are mistaken on two accounts. Baric's view is not a minority view, snd there are other reputed scientists who have made comments in the same vein, including David Baltimore, Alexander Kekulé and Simon Wain-Hobson [11]. Secondly, this is not something that can be settled by scholarly papers [12], as Colin said in a previous discussion. Thirdly, I see that Baric's paper is still being cited, so I've tagged it as FV and will remove it unless you can show how it supports the claim. We should continue this discussion on the GoF page to clean up the COVID section there. LondonIP (talk) 02:14, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

I've specifically sourced it to the claim it verifies. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 12:55, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

The takeaway here is that the mismatch between what the scientists were saying privately and what they wrote publicly destroys their credibility. If they privately say X, then three days later say that X is a conspiracy theory, without mentioning at the time that they initially favored X but changed their mind because of Y, that calls their honesty into doubt. Surely, if they themselves initially believed X, it would be more honest to say that they rejected X because of Y, not to say that X is a conspiracy. Coming up with a reason for the change at a later time doesn't eliminate the initial lie. Given that Andersen lied with his "conspiracy theory" claim, and has yet to come clean about that, I don't lend much credence to his NYT interview.

Furthermore, the reason Andersen gives for coming to his "conspiracy" conclusion does not itself support the conclusion. The existence of FCS in other coronaviruses points to Z being possible. However, it does not rule out LL.

The NYT even gave him a chance to come clean, asking him if he had any regrets. He didn't mention any. Adoring nanny (talk) 04:48, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

This is entirely original research, and is fine for theorizing but has no place in the article. Frankly, it may constitute a BLP violation. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 15:27, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm not trying to put the "liar" part into the article based on present sourcing. You asked me for my take on it, and I gave it to you.

As currently written, the lead fails to provide any context to understand that political motivations played an important role in scientists' handling and discussion of the lab leak theory. This context is clearly DUE and necessary for an accurate representation of how the lab leak came to be dismissed by some as a conspiracy theory early on in the pandemic. Stonkaments (talk) 02:24, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

User:Stonkaments, I agree with you and just made an attempt[13] at supplying said context, at least in part. It is likely to take a long slog to get something along these lines to be stable in the article. Adoring nanny (talk) 03:02, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

What sources do you have that say this? Do they outweigh the sources that we have that don't say this? — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 15:27, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

I have contextualized the views of these scientists in their current opinions, as is required by BLP. We cannot assume malice in this situation, as doing so would be OR, and frankly some of the comments on this section border on BLP violations. We cannot go around stating that scientists were lying or covering up something when we do not have evidence. People are allowed to change their opinion, and the fact that scientists are willing to do so in the face of new evidence is the hallmark of good science. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 15:44, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

latest edits adding Kristian G Andersen wiki link is directed to the footballer. 2603:800C:3101:D064:18A6:6458:7838:3B28 (talk) 17:32, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Also the dates are wrong? should be 2020? were any emails sent in 2019? 2603:800C:3101:D064:18A6:6458:7838:3B28 (talk) 17:39, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

"near the beginning of the pandemic" implies also early 2020, but I'm just going to say "Early in 2020" the emails were sent. Will fix both, thanks for the heads up — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 17:46, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Should we start a page for Kristian? suprised he doesnt have one. 2603:800C:3101:D064:18A6:6458:7838:3B28 (talk) 17:50, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, I am surprised he does not have one. I haven't reviewed the notability criteria for professors/scientists in a while, but I would hazard a guess that he meets them handily. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 23:51, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

There was one created by ScrumptiousFood but DGG moved it to Draft:Kristian G Andersen. There is also Draft:Robert F. Garry. I think they both meet both NPROFF and GNG at this point. LondonIP (talk) 01:48, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

@Adoring nanny, should we not trust the scientists on why they state their view has changed? Why not? We have RSes which directly state the reasons why some scientists now believe in the zoonotic theory: [14] [15] [16]. Is there any RS which directly states they changed their mind for other reasons? As I've said, this is a BLP issue. Misrepresentation of their views or stating there is malfeasance without evidence is a problem. We have to be very careful when discussing the views of living persons. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 23:45, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, starting with the very piece under discussion here. I've quoted a key portion above near the beginning of this section. The piece is even more explicit when it says Viscount Ridley, co-author of Viral: the search for the origin of Covid, said: “These emails show a lamentable lack of openness and transparency among Western scientists who appear to have been more interested in shutting down a hypothesis they thought was very plausible, for political reasons. In light of BLP issues, IMO the best response, based on current sourcing, is not to state why they changed their public positions. We do have sourcing for the "they lied" point of view, but it's not overwhelming. It's not enough to say in the article that they lied. But it is enough that we shouldn't give their reasons in WikiVoice, either. If you want to have a WP:WIKIVOICE "describe the controversy" discussion, you could include both their ostensible reasons and Ridley. Adoring nanny (talk) 00:48, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

I think all of this needs to be unpacked in the body, with a better summarisation in the lead. LondonIP (talk) 02:17, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Yep, it supports the idea that RIDLEY believes this. Not that it is true. We do not have sourcing for "they lied." We have sourcing for "Matt Ridley thinks they lied." The mere existence of a single person who questions these motivations is not enough. Statements of opinion do not trump our BESTSOURCES. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 12:50, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Well, it's more than just Ridley. See the lead quote form the Telegraph article above. We also do have this from The Intercept: “Neither Drs. Fauci or Collins edited our Proximal Origins paper in any way. The major feedback we got from the Feb 1 teleconference was: 1. Don’t try to write a paper at all — it’s unnecessary or 2. If you do write it don’t mention a lab origin as that will just add fuel to the conspiracists,” Garry wrote on Wednesday. and “However, further debate about such accusations would unnecessarily distract top researchers from their active duties and do unnecessary harm to science in general and science in China in particular,” Fouchier wrote. How to handle those quotes is certainly an interesting question worth exploring. Adoring nanny (talk) 14:13, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

That's Robert Garry and Ron Fouchier, who we don't currently mention. They also don't mention the scientists we do have. We would need to couch these as attributed quotes to those persons, if we were to use them at all. They have no bearing on the current content we have for 3 other scientists. Unless there's a connection that's spelled out in these sources that I'm not seeing...any use of these quotes to frame those other scientists would be original research. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 14:30, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Also important to say, you seem to have taken Garry's quote out of context. The intercept added this: "After publication, Robert Garry clarified his previous comments to The Intercept: “One thing that could be misconstrued is that neither Dr Fauci or Dr Collins suggested in any way that we not write the Proximal Origin paper. Likewise, neither one suggested that we not mention the possibilty of a Lab origin. These were comments from others in emails after the call.” The story’s sub-headline has been updated to reflect Garry’s clarification that the advice did not come from NIH officials but from others following the call." Any mention of Garry's quote would have to include this part as well. And any mention of Fouchier's quote would have to include the other part of his quote, where he says the discussion is worth having: “Given the evidence presented and the discussions around it, I would conclude that a follow-up discussion on the possible origin of 2019-nCoV would be of much interest,” wrote Ron Fouchier, a virologist at the Erasmus MC Center for Viroscience in the Netherlands, on February 2..

And once we get too long, it becomes UNDUE. So it's a balance. I would err on not including these at all, given that they require so much context to become applicable. That's a great indication that we're approaching COATRACK territory. We only have one article from The Intercept (already a biased source, though considered generally reliable for news). The RSP entry for The Intercept reads: Almost all editors consider The Intercept a biased source, so uses may need to be attributed. For science, editors prefer peer-reviewed journals over news sources like The Intercept. I'm not sure these scientists' comments are DUE once we already have a few sentences about this episode, and any use of them would need to be attributed to the Intercept as quotes from others. So it becomes really long. We are not building an article that describes in detail the correspondence of scientists about the lab leak theory, and we do not need a laundry list of what each and every scientist has said about it. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 14:36, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

There's actually a term for what The Intercept has done here, and it would be best described as "media junk" or "yellow journalism." There's a reason few, if any other sources have acknowledged this outside of The Intercept, Telegraph, Daily Mail, etc. The RSP entries for these sources show that there is belief in bias or opinion from these sources. Anything beyond basic facts likely needs to be attributed. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 14:55, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Not sure the relevance of an editor's opinion that this is "yellow journalism". I see both are green at WP:RSP. Bias is allowed per WP:YESPOV. And I don't see any allegation that either source might be unreliable for quoting emails. Adoring nanny (talk) 15:14, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

"green" is not all that matters at RSP. Read the specific entries and see that these sources (particularly The Intercept) should be attributed. This is also exactly what YESPOV tells us to do. The only reason the current content in the article that we're discussing is probably fine in WikiVoice is that I added an NBC piece from June. NBC does not have this stipulation. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 16:56, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

This bit about Trump in the lead should probably be moved, tweaked or the opinions of the sciensts included? The idea that the virus was released from a laboratory, either accidentally or deliberately, appeared early in the pandemic. The theory gained popularity through its promotion by political figures such as US president Donald Trump and other members of the Republican Party, as well as its dissemination in American conservative media, fomenting tensions between the United States and China. It was subsequently dismissed as a conspiracy theory.[11][12] It reads as if Trump and conservative media alone made it up to antagonize china, but now we now see scientist were telling government officials that it looked like it may have been engineered. It might be worth explaining that "it was dismissed as a conspiracy theory" by the same scientists that first raised the possiblity to the government? 2603:800C:3101:D064:4C5C:71AC:11CB:6BF6 (talk) 19:00, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Of course it should. The way it reads now is completely misleading and does a disservice to our readers. I have tried to fix it twice, but I don't really keep up on this page or the subject well enough to fashion a retort without a ton of effort, and a man has to pick his fights in this life. Le Marteau (talk) 19:08, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

@Le Marteau: existing phrasing does not say or imply that Trump & co invented the theory. Emails that were private at the time obviously didn't impact public perception. Respectfully, attempts at improvement should probably be left to those the do keep up with the subject and talk page; the change you repeatedly added isn't verifiable. VQuakr (talk) 19:41, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

My two edits to the material in question over the course of a day to rapidly changing text was not "edit warring" any more than were your two edits to that same material over the course of a day. And of COURSE the way it reads implies the theory had a Trumpian genesis... you're saying it does not is myopic. Le Marteau (talk) 19:55, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

@VQuakr:It strongly suggests that trump is a conspiracy theorist. 2603:800C:3101:D064:4C5C:71AC:11CB:6BF6 (talk) 20:25, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

He is, but that is not the issue. The issue is, as it's written, it implies the theory originated with Trump and/or Trumpers. Le Marteau (talk) 20:55, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Do you have a source for that? We cant use our own opinions. 2603:800C:3101:D064:4C5C:71AC:11CB:6BF6 (talk) 21:01, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

The thing of it is, this could all be solved by bringing up the sourced fact that it was not just Trumpers who were walking around with this notion in their head and early on. I am perplexed as to why there is such strong insistence to have any mention of anyone else believing such a thing until well deeper into the lead.Le Marteau (talk) 21:13, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

It does no such thing. VQuakr (talk) 22:03, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Break

It's not that it should be deeper in the lead, it's that it should be with similar content. What you seem to be proposing is that we should put the scientists' emails in that paragraph to somehow suggest that they invented the theory. or in any way were promoting it. This could not be further from the truth.

They were simply asking "Huh, could this actually be true?" and then soon after: "nah."

The theory already existed by the time these scientists were privately discussing it. As far as anyone can tell, the idea was actually first proposed by a random twitter user on January 5th [17]. It then spread to 4chan and Reddit from there. The Daily Mail published the first real story about it on January 23rd [18]. But it wasn't until March of that year, in 2020, when Ron Watkins (who many suspect is actually "Q" of Qanon) tweeted to his many many followers about it, and it really took off [19]. Russian and Chinese state-backed accounts began proposing that it was created in a lab in the US on January 20th [20]

The issue is, as it's written, it implies the theory originated with Trump and/or Trumpers. It did. At least in America. Ron Watkins spread it and made it huge. There's a really good documentary about this called Q Into the Storm by Cullen Hoback. It's mostly about Qanon and the search for who "Q" really is, but in the last several episodes, he talks about the origins of the lab leak theory (especially the bioweapon theory) and how it was promoted and retweeted and made viral by Qanon followers.

The rest of the lead is not chronological. Most leads are not chronological. They are thematic. It would be wrong, misleading, and disingenuous to place the sentence about scientists in that paragraph, as it would suggest that these scientists originated the theory. When in fact, they were simply running off of an idea that already existed.

If anything, we should put a sentence about Ron Watkins and the Hong Kong Twitter user in that paragraph.

If you like, we could move that scientist paragraph up a bit, but I think it's actually where it belongs, as the last part of the lead. That's sort of describing the MAINSTREAM view as a foil to the rest of the lead. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:43, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink: I this this series adds far too much detail for the lead. This should be expounded in the body while we work on de-bloating the intro. VQuakr (talk) 22:26, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes I would be fine with removing some of that content. I agree the lead is too long per WP:LEAD. I'll start pruning it as well — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 22:28, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Is that better? — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 22:51, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Better, but maybe we should remove the conspiracy stuff all together. Otherwise we're calling people conspiracy theoriosts without explaining the importart details of Collin's campaign. 2603:800C:3101:D064:B140:44B1:438A:8293 (talk) 18:10, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Also maybe need to expand this sentence in the lead Most scientists have remained skeptical of the idea, citing a lack of supporting evidence. Perhaps chould add "After first favoring the idea," 2603:800C:3101:D064:B140:44B1:438A:8293 (talk) 18:18, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Could you provide any scientific source [i.e. the kind of source needed to support the idea that "scientists initially favoured the idea", not preliminary emails or later interpretations thereof] which support[ed] this idea? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:45, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Not needed. We have WP:RS saying that they initially favored LL. We don't have academic sources stating that they did not initially favor LL. Adoring nanny (talk) 00:14, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

There's RS that says that scientists favored lab leak at the beginning of the pandemic? Feel free to link. –Novem Linguae (talk) 00:22, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

See the first few posts in this very section. Adoring nanny (talk) 02:53, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. I read it just now. It doesn't provide enough context to convince me the couple of people they quoted represent the majority of the scientific community. That's quite a claim. Needs strong evidence per WP:EXTRAORDINARY –Novem Linguae (talk) 03:04, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

We don't have RS about "a majority". If I gave that impression, I apologize. For that matter, I'm not aware of any poll of scientists on the issue. We do have RS that some leading scientists initially favored it. Adoring nanny (talk) 03:55, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

No worries. I responded to the "majority" idea because folks before you suggested the edit At first favoring the idea, most scientists have remained skeptical of the idea and mentioned scientists initially favoured the idea. To me, both of those sentences imply a scientific majority. –Novem Linguae (talk) 04:05, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Do we have a RS that say scientists "initially favored" anything? Musing about it in internal emails isn't "favoring" anything. VQuakr (talk) 20:00, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, there are, including Jeremy Farrar's latest book in which he says Edward C. Holmes was 60/40 in favour of LL. There are others, but if the dispute here is merely about wording, then I suggest we hold an RfC. LondonIP (talk) 03:14, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Probably would have been better to have it be more precise about who favored it initially. You're right that it shouldn't be "most". At that point, most scientists probably weren't even aware of the question. Maybe Some leading scientists initially favored the idea. before going into the skepticism. Adoring nanny (talk) 13:18, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

"Liberal"

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=COVID-19_lab_leak_theory&diff=1070598183&oldid=1069877133 should this change have been made? 2600:8804:6600:45:49C0:938F:82DE:741E (talk) 16:28, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

No. "Politicians and media outlets" is overlybroad. If the lead can say "Republicans" and Trumpers were proponents of the theory, certainly it can say that it was a left wing thing to call it a conspiracy theory with such vehemence. Removing it from the lead in favor of generic "politicians" is a bad edit but is par for the course lately. The edit summary "rmv. stuff that was made up" is also charming. Le Marteau (talk) 00:06, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

antartic soil

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/09/early-lab-grown-covid-virus-found-sample-lends-weight-wuhan/

have a read of this. wonder what to make of it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7F:567C:2F00:157E:F8F:4FC3:F787 (talk) 02:00, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

The paywall they got going there is tenacious. Archived version: https://archive.is/CUUEX Le Marteau (talk) 09:23, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

"Hungarian scientists claim that..." - if this is information stemming from a seemingly scientific effort (and it looks like it is, although the Telegraph is wonderfully paywalled...), then we should at least wait for the peer-reviewed paper (and purists would wait until what is seemingly a primary study is picked up in secondary litterature) to be able to cite that. There are many reasons why such claims could be wrong (IIRC there were similar reports about COVID being found in sewers in Spain, but apparently those results are not that conclusive - could be the case here too). There's WP:NORUSH. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:18, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

See this. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:20, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

The Hungarians are making claims of contamination and a literal leak of Covid by a sequencing lab, but so far that's just their claim and for all anyone knows the contamination could be in their lab or somewhere else. We'll have to wait for further developments to include anything in the article of course. Le Marteau (talk) 11:10, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Agree with both of the above. Wait for more info. Adoring nanny (talk) 12:20, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Extremely high rate of false positives in these tests due to poor probe usage, improper melting/annealing temperature for the probes, contamination, etc. (for nucleic acid tests). And then for antigen tests, the issue is that the probe is too sticky. Something to keep in mind when reading studies or articles about mass testing of anything, but especially environmental samples (because they are so dirty). — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 14:07, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Think this is the preprint. Some commentary by Andersen[21]. fiveby(zero) 14:55, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Err, this is the first paper. First link was a follow-up report. fiveby(zero) 15:22, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Anyway, the first one of your comments pretty much puts the issue to rest:

Recently Csabai et al.1 have found a most likely contaminated metagenomic sample set from Antarctica that contained traces of unique SARS-CoV-2 variants. This is a short followup of that report where we attempt to find genetic footprint of the hosts. With reasonable confidence we could identify genetic material from mitochondria of Homo sapiens, green monkey and Chinese hamster. The latter two most probably originated from cell lines Vero E6 (or COS-7) and CHO respectively, which are frequent laboratory culture media for studying viruses including SARS-CoV-2 and its closest relatives. [22]

(and if people have any doubt: this follow-up report is written by... Csabai and another researcher) RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:36, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Well, Andersen does say the paper and authors are "fine" (despite bioRxiv rejection). Near as i can tell he is saying "not ancestral" contrary Bloom's 2019/2020 claim in the The Telegraph (Bloom says quoted out of context[23]). Regardless, a long way from article content and no reason to start beating up on any authors. fiveby(zero) 16:31, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

To save some time arguing here, we should just write exactly what Kristian Andersen wants us to write on the wiki. 2600:8804:6600:45:4824:1DEA:6A4:8056 (talk) 20:52, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Why would we do that? None of this is WP:DUE or verifiable to reliable sources. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 22:29, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

The words quoted above are not even from Andersen, so unless you're trying to make some form of ad absurdum or attack a strawman, your comment leaves me puzzled... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:18, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

IMO we still don't need to do anything. Adoring nanny (talk) 21:20, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Yep. Looks like general agreement that this doesn't need coverage in the article at this time. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:18, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

• Wait till there are more RS covering it with more expert opinions. LondonIP (talk) 02:02, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Related article

Lancet letter was recently moved from draftspace to mainspace. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:37, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Nicely done ScrumptiousFood. We should have one also n the Proximal Origin paper. LondonIP (talk) 02:04, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Neutral statement: alteration of genome

The current version of the article states: Some versions, particularly those alleging alteration of the SARS-CoV-2 genome, are based on speculation, misinformation, or misrepresentations of scientific evidence.

The problem with this statement is that scientists are currently divided on whether alteration to the SARS-CoV-2 genome, or (more precisely) its immediate progenitor's genome, can be determined without access to laboratory records 1 2 3 4 5.

Baric Graham 2020 (PMID: 32392464) cites Andersen et al (PMID: 32284615) in light of social media speculation about possible laboratory manipulation and deliberate and/or accidental release of SARS-CoV-2. But as Ralph Baric later told to PresaDiretta, "You can engineer a virus without leaving any trace" [1]. After dampening his "smoking gun" comment about the FCS, David Baltimore told to Caltech "You can't distinguish between the two origins from just looking at the sequence" [2]. And more significantly, after a (unapproved) grant request by EHA about coronavirus GoF experiments was leaked in Sep 2021; Jack Nunberg told to The Intercept "Whether that particular study did or didn’t [lead to the pandemic], it certainly could have" [3] and Alexander Kekulé told to German television "My unease about the possibility that it could have been a laboratory accident has increased" [4]. Simon Wain Hobson wrote in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung about it: "What we do not know - and badly need to know - is whether this proposal was submitted elsewhere, financed and performed." [5].

A neutral statement would reflect the views of these scientists as expressed in these more recent sources, while tempering confidence about facts that scientists can't know without access to key documents at the Wuhan laboratory. The full quote from Baric is "You can engineer a virus without leaving any trace. The answers you are looking for, however, can only be found in the archives of the Wuhan laboratory".

80.107.62.75 (talk) 07:32, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

Yes, this has been a problem for a while, and the main reason the POV tag remains on the Gain of function research page. I would support a rewrite of the sentence using better sources and providing some much needed WP:BALANCE on the issue. LondonIP (talk) 02:01, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

We do not treat blatant minority views as always worthy of inclusion. This is what BALANCE tells us as well.. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 10:42, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Social Media crackdown

It may be good to include a section in this article relating to the social media crackdown on users who brought forward this theory before in was in the mainstream news. — Preceding unsigned comment added by FactChecker200000 (talk • contribs) 22:03, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

I started writing up a suggested addition, but then, I realized it is already mentioned: Facebook enacted a policy to remove discussion of the lab leak theory as misinformation; it lifted the ban a year later, in May 2021. If additional social media companies such as YouTube were involved, and you can find a reliable source that says this, feel free to add a sentence around there. Just make sure to cite your sources using <ref></ref>. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:36, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

How do we handle reports on wikipedia itself? https://www.cnet.com/news/features/wikipedia-is-at-war-over-the-coronavirus-lab-leak-theory/ 99.167.221.181 (talk) 03:47, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Generally, we avoid navel-gazing. Specifically, I would say that WP's coverage of the theory isn't sufficiently relevant to the theory itself to warrant any mention in this article. VQuakr (talk) 04:39, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

I tend to agree, but as editors do we have too much of a bias or conflict of interest to make this determination? How often does wikipedia make the news in this way? Is this case notable? Should we seek outside help that arnt classical wikipedia editors? 98.188.101.185 (talk) 16:22, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikipedia in the media. A common problem with those is also that they rarely understand how Wikipedia and its processes work, so the accuracy and quality varies a lot. —PaleoNeonate – 23:39, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

@PaleoNeonate: I don't really have complaints about the quality of the linked source. Their description of our processes seems reasonably accurate. But it's not relevant to the subject of this article. IP: no, WP editors make the editorial decisions. We're not going to outsource that or collectively recuse ourselves even if we practically could. VQuakr (talk) 00:34, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

@PaleoNeonate: I dont see anything at Wikipedia:Wikipedia in the media that discusses a situation like this? could you point to a more specific place? thanks. 2600:1700:8660:E180:34FC:862:8E67:2F11 (talk) 06:39, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

My gut is that CNet is not enough for including it in this article. Most of the sources here are pretty high profile, more so than CNet. I will say that I am not particularly persuaded by objections that sources don't know how Wikipedia works. As a general matter, a lot of sources don't know how a lot of things work, but we still use them. Adoring nanny (talk) 00:36, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Here is a better article from the The Atlantic: The “Talk” page linked to the Wikipedia entry on the origin of the coronavirus provides visibility into the roiling editing wars. Sock-puppet accounts descended, trying to nudge the coverage of the topic to reflect particular points of view. A separate page was created, dedicated specifically to the “COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis,” but site administrators later deleted it—a decision that remains in dispute within the Wikipedia community. [24]. LondonIP (talk) 01:59, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

This quote shows a profound misunderstanding of Wikipedia's policies, guidelines, and procedures. In this case, administrators do not delete pages, a consensus of editors do, via deletion discussions. CSDs and PRODs are not placed by administrators either. They are only heeded and patrolled by them as functionaries. A gross oversimplification. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 10:41, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

I concur with Shibbolethink on this point. (Even though it's an admin who has to push the button to make the software delete a page, phrasing it the way that column does creates the wrong impression of how the project operates. If it were recent, rather than months old, I'd actually write in and request a correction.) In addition, the linked item is rather in op-ed/advocacy territory, which would incline me against using it anyway. XOR'easter (talk) 22:13, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Please write in and request a correction. I'd like to know what actually happened in this case. 2600:8804:6600:45:94CC:820C:AF4C:F1E8 (talk) 22:19, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

@Adoring nanny: We also note the news media changing their language away from being "debunked" and a "conspiracy theory". We may want to group these items together (IMO, the 'chilling effects' section would be the right one, as that was the impetus) along with any other notable examples we can source. And, since Wikipedia follows those sources, it would be redundant to list Wikipedia in addition to those primary source editorial changes (unless there's a really good argument that our coverage is at least as notable as that of MSM and major social media platforms, which I find to be unlikely). Bakkster Man (talk) 15:17, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

It seems the holy grail of chilling effects would be to have an entire wikipedia article deleted. Simply undocumentable? Here's a section about the NSA's effect on wikipedia Chilling_effect#Chilling_effects_on_Wikipedia_users, perhaps we should discuss it there instead of here. 2600:8804:6600:45:8883:734C:C63B:335 (talk) 16:57, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

• Support adding CNET and Atlantic articles. Editors who campaigned to suppress this topic on Wikipedia should not be commenting here, per WP:COI. Do we need to start a discussion about this on WP:COI/N? ScrumptiousFood (talk) 19:13, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

I think we're either talking about editor bias rather than COIs (which are caused by WP:EXTERNALREL, not just participation in a discussion), or everyone involved in the content dispute at the time has a potential COI. I'd strongly oppose any suggestion that editors of only one side of a discussion be effectively muzzled because consensus later changed, rather than any actual policy violation. If we can't resolve here on Talk, I'd suggest a less contentious noticeboard in the Articles and content category regarding notability and reliability, rather than one regarding specific editor conduct (if you think there's an issue here, that arguably needs to be dealt with via WP:COVIDDS). Bakkster Man (talk) 20:49, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

I believe at least two editors in the above discussion have written at length arguing that there was no lab leak. Is that a conflict or simply a bias? Serious question, thanks. 2600:8804:6600:45:94CC:820C:AF4C:F1E8 (talk) 21:07, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

If (and only if) their support of a particular view is at the expense of Wikipedia's goals and core content policies, then that would fall under WP:ADVOCACY. COI requires an external relationship, and merely expressing a point of view on Talk pages is neither external nor a relationship. Bakkster Man (talk) 21:19, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

It seems to me that attempting to suppress two articles is at the expense of Wikipedia's goals. 2600:8804:6600:45:94CC:820C:AF4C:F1E8 (talk) 21:31, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

As Bakkster Man says there needs to be an external relationship. An example would be if a member of DRASTIC was trying to push lab leak stuff on Wikipedia. Suspected COI-compromised editors can be reported to WP:COIN. Alexbrn (talk) 21:35, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, should have been more clear, it seems to me that we are dealing with advocacy. 2600:8804:6600:45:94CC:820C:AF4C:F1E8 (talk) 21:46, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

If you think that's the case, it would require making a case to the admins that WP:COVIDDS has been violated. Simply disagreeing over content discussions doesn't violate sanctions or policy, let alone create a conflict of interest. In any case, this line of discussion has strayed away from WP:CONSENSUS and into WP:ASPERSIONS, and needs to get back on topic. Bakkster Man (talk) 21:46, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Advocacy#Dealing_with_advocates tells us that "informing the editor of Wikipedia's mission and asking them to refrain from editing topics that they cannot cover neutrally." 2600:8804:6600:45:94CC:820C:AF4C:F1E8 (talk) 21:55, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Bakkster Man is right. That's not how COI works. XOR'easter (talk) 22:06, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

New sources

The template with the sources has been updated with a dozen or so new sources (sadly none of them pure scholarship). I think that instead of bickering on talk pages, you can just as well comb through archives and retrieve relevant URLs describing the lab leak theory, if these are not already present. Or expand the article, which is also a good thing. I've also added the Press template, as this article has attracted some scrutiny from the media (though admittedly not as much as elsewhere). PS. There should be a passing mention about the four books advocating for lab leak in the article (how carefully chosen by WSJ!). Not that they in any way supplant the scientific consensus, but the reader should know that they exist and the basic tenets of their arguments if relevant. Certainly belongs to the "Political and media attention" section. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 13:24, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

We should mention that the WSJ and Harper Collins are owned by the same company News_Corp. Really puts into question the reporting from these sources! 2600:8804:6600:45:65AF:F79C:16D1:B19C (talk) 21:03, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

I mean, we don't need to mention this particular source but the books in general - that they exist and that they contributed to the discussion (while following DUE, which is why only a passing mention is needed, not more). They are mentioned in most articles about the authors, see: Alina Chan, Matt Ridley (reference to the book: Viral: The Search for the Origin of COVID-19); Sharri Markson, and Jasper Becker. Nicholas Wade's book is not mentioned in the article but the book is apparently based on his 10K-word essay published earlier. I'd also note that only two of four books are actually published by a company that is controlled by the same one as WSJ, one has appeared in a conservative imprint and another in an apparently independent one. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 22:38, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

Meaning of "several"

• • PLEASE FIX **

I came across the world "several" in this post, and curious, clicked in to find the actual number was 50. As a natural english speaker, several always was used in a vague way, but scarcely ever meant more than 20, numbers that high would be "dozens," "numerous," or "many." I looked at Merriam Webster's definition:

Definition B of several - "b : more than two but fewer than many" [1]

Regardless of whether this is the only meaning of several, it's certainly unnecessarily confusing to use an ambiguous term as evidenced by my surprise. I'm sure many of you can imagine if somebody said they had done a bad thing "several times" and the actual number turned out to be 50 times, you could feel they had been deliberately dishonest.

I would have liked to edit the entry to say "No less than fifty times." Subcategory "Prior lab leak incidents."

I apparently am not allowed to edit this article to correct this myself.

Anfurny (talk) 15:05, 20 February 2022 (UTC) Anfurny

1. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/several

The term is so vague as to be useless and misleading. Oxford Languages (for Google) defines "several" as "more than two but not many." But what I get from looking at the sources is not that leaks are "few" or "several", but that they are an emergent and dangerous threat. Any quantifications in Wikivoice need to be precise, attributed, or not there at all (which is my preference... remove the sentence). Le Marteau (talk) 18:47, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

Fixed. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 19:18, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

I agree the term is vague and insufficient. I gave the number 50 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laboratory_biosecurity_incidents, which I presume meets the merits of precise and attributed. Though it's possible there are more that aren't on the list, my first instinct would be to write "No fewer than fifty."

As for removing it entirely, I think doing so may indeed have the effect of reducing the number of misleading sentences, though I feel it would detract from the article overall. Personally if asked to guess the number of lab leaks that had happened, I would have guessed no more than 10, and I imagine that a plurality would have guessed fewer than that (0-3 perhaps). In short - I think something that is a common misunderstanding increases the merit for inclusion, curious how that squares with general wikipedia policy. ~Anfurny — Preceding unsigned comment added by Anfurny (talk • contribs) 22:28, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

Hi, I think you may be misunderstanding the incidents in that list. Many of them did not result in an infection of any kind. many of those that did, did not result in more than 1 infection of the single worker who infected themselves. Such incidents would not qualify as possibly pandemic-starting events. Many of the pathogens involved do not qualify as they are heavily attenuated, and only capable of infecting a healthy adult in a mild or completely asymptomatic way. Such events would not qualify as part of this sentence. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 22:47, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

The latest article from The Telegraph, "Wuhan lab leak believed ‘behind closed doors’ to be likeliest origin of Covid, expert says" at https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/22/wuhan-lab-leak-believed-behind-closed-doors-likeliest-origin/ (archive at https://archive.is/Wlzrv) says "Lab leaks are fairly common". I don't advocate our article use that phrase though... perhaps, "Lab leaks are not uncommon". Le Marteau (talk) 03:28, 23 February 2022 (UTC)